IMPERFECT Lady

One Real Me

“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?  Four.  Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.”   

~Abraham Lincoln

 

I love the simplicity of how this shows you can name anything you want, but that doesn’t make it so.

 

I have been learning about my self, a part of me that I didn’t even know existed, it was like I was a tail, but was called a leg.

 

I knew myself the best as a leg, and I created a life as a leg, learned how to live and be and love and enjoy life, as a leg and I was really a tail.

 

It isn’t that neither is wrong or right, except that if you are one thing and think you are something else, then it is.

 

That is where the psychological damage is done.

 

Somehow it slipped my attention for 46 years that I was not who I knew myself to be.

 

It is beyond what a thought can hold to not know that you didn’t know that you are not what you thought you were.

 

Its like my only normal was to be two things, yet could only see one of them, I saw me as a leg, yet I acted like a tail.

 

The two were never fully in my awareness at one time. 

 

I am now working to merge the two selves inside so that I become one real me.

 

Puzzle Called Me.

“The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.” 

~Thomas Carlyle

 

Putting together our lives is like a puzzle without a picture, we find what goes together and what doesn’t.

 

Some parts fit easily and others will take practice and consorted effort to work them into place.

 

271 days have passed since the first of the year, and it was my intention and desire to work with my body each day in yoga to bend it back into shape.

 

265 days I made it to the mat and struggled against flab, weak muscles, ouchy joints, frozen stiff muscles not to mention a lazy attitude that would rather, snuggle.

 

Had I not started this journey I would have missed the feelings of muscles, strong flexible muscles and a feeling of wonder taking care of self.

 

It has rubbed off in other areas, I am more mindful of what I eat and even how much or if I am hungry.

 

I am so grateful that I have worked to eliminate the suffering my body was heading into and I will not miss knowing what it is like to have a strong body.

My strong body seems to help with keeping my mind strong as well, that when you get strong in one area, the others tag along.

 

Each day I am so proud of myself when I take the time and effort, the pain and suffering on the mat, as yoga changes the shape of me, the feel of me, and the overall puzzle called me.

 

 

 

Annihilate My Truth

My brother wrote about the word annihilation and I had never looked at what it meant, yet I too have used the word, but now I want to see how it is applied.

 

Words to me are much more than words, they seem to have power in and behind them, and it’s feelings that give words energy, not the word itself.

 

We use words to describe feelings, to express how the body feels.  Words to me are secondary in living life; they are the running commentator to what is actually going on. 

 

Often times it seems people’s commentators are liars and they speak the opposite of their feelings, in kindness, to spare another their true feelings, or to spare themselves making light of what is bad.

 

When the feelings and the comment about the feelings don’t match, you are lying in words but your feelings are still there unchanged and unexpressed.

 

"Annihilation is defined as "total destruction" or "complete obliteration" of an object; having its root in the Latin nihil (nothing). A literal translation is "to make into nothing"."

 

When I spoke of my experience of fear/terror of my father, it never felt like it was taken serious and that I could easily transfer words back to make things right.

 

And when I use the word rape and abuse, or pedophile instead of father, or neglect instead of mothering, I have the problem.  I am using the wrong words.

 

The word annihilation is even a kind word for liar.

 

My family prefers liars and will annihilate those who use the incorrect words.

 

The word family covers up the feelings of incest, rape, neglect, and I am annihilated when I dare expose what lay beneath the word father.

 

It seems the greatest error is to annihilate the truth, to make into nothing my truths.

 

I am not annihilated, the truth is.

 

To be a truthful commentator means you have to walk and act in harmony with your feelings.

 

Which is why I had asked my sisters if they too recalled feelings similar to mine, for if they didn’t, I could greatly understand their comments of father.

I am made into nothing due to being abused.

 

Here is the choice, being annihilated by my family for speaking my feelings or becoming a liar.

 

Annihilation is their action, being a liar would be mine.

 

I would have to lie to return to the family and annihilate my truth.

 

I Play Where I am Happy!

“It’s easier to love a happy me,” is a comment I made and it seems profound in a very simplistic way.

 

How can you love yourself if you are unhappy?

 

What I found by writing is that unhappiness is wanting what is impossible to have.

 

If you are not happy with what you have, you can’t love what you are.

 

My happiness came when I discovered that there was no chance in getting what I wanted for me, that I had to accept what I was.

 

I wanted me to be a not abused girl.

 

I didn’t want to own the abuse and all what the abuse did to me, nor any of the characters attached to the abuse, or the church’s line of forgiveness.

 

The list went on and on, and nothing on the list was pleasing to me; a full menu of things I didn’t like.

 

When there was no hope or a pray in heaven that my reality could/would/should change, I found happiness.

 

It was either be okay with my lot in life, or be unhappy.

 

It is easy to be happy with a nice pair of shoes or jeans that fit you well, but try and put on reality when it seems too sordid to tell and be happy in that.

 

But it hurts more to be forever waiting and wanting what is impossible to have.

 

For some reason it is better to accept what is possible than to get left seeking the impossible.

 

 

I made friends with what was possible.

 

I learned mostly I had possibilities.

 

“When God shuts a door, he opens a window” I believe is a phrase many use.

 

Instead of sitting by the closed door, I went to the window and had the courage to find a way to be happy.

 

By turning my attention and desires away from the closed door, I was presented with a million opportunities to be happy. 

 

They would never be the choices behind the closed door, they were all different and I was delighted and surprised to find they made me happy.

 

In the window of opportunities I began to see a new life, a new way, a new me, a new normal was being born.

 

There is simply nothing I can do to change my past or all the characters who played there, but I can now decide how I play today.

 

I play where I am happy!

 

Unhappiness wants what is impossible to get.

“Happiness is a function of accepting what is.”

     ~Werner Erhard

 

I received a message from an old friend, and he was worried about me being happy, that he was sorry I felt so badly towards my mother, he hoped I would get over it and let go, he also wished me the best and a little peace.

 

It is hard to explain how I can be happy away from my mother/father/family.

 

What I have written about most is what was wrong with our relationship, not what was good. 

 

Ask any divorced women if she is happier away from her ex or in his presence, and that is how a child feels who finally is able to exit a bad family relationship, no matter what age.

 

My peace inside comes from knowing I have put up boundaries, where I will not be hurt again.

 

My happiness is by accepting who they are and not expecting something else.

 

I am not sitting waiting for what they are unable to give.

 

I had to let go of my image or idea of a father and have accepted that he is sick and is a pedophile; he is unable to be a dad.  Happiness is no longer wanting what he isn’t able to give.  Happiness comes in letting go of the Hallmark picture, and instead seeing what I have.

 

I had to let go of my thoughts of who my mother was, and had to replace them with reality.

 

Peace comes in knowing there is nothing I can do to change who they are, but rather change how I react.

 

Even though much of my writings are struggles to figure out all the nuances of abuse, the traces and hooks that have me mixed up inside, each time I unravel a new strand I am more peaceful.

 

Writing is my therapy, it allows me to work out what I fail to see, what part of me is still confused, lost and unsure. 

 

What part of me is still in the illusion of a loving family.

 

I am not happy until I have full disclosure of what is.

 

Happiness is being at one with reality.

 

Unhappiness wants what is impossible to get.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Didn't Forgive Her

When women feel they have learned to forgive their mothers - and men, their fathers - all it usually means is that they've decided to allow themselves the same kind of behavior.

~Mignon McLaughlin

 

The above quote caught my attention and I full heartedly agreed.  Yet someone commented that it was kinda negative, and I agree it is negative and rightly so.

 

What is forgiveness?

How is it applied and why?

Who needs it and is it our responsibility to apply forgiveness upon the behaviors from someone who have hurt us, and if so, what does it change?

 

If I hurt someone, will them adding forgiveness on top like gravy make it feel better, remove my actions, will they feel less pain and will it stop me from hurting them again?  What is my consequence for hurting them?  Them being okay and letting it go letting me be a harmful humanbeing, is that good for me??? 

 

While the word sounds so compassionate and very loving, is it?

 

Forgiveness is applied upon another, when I believe it was meant for personal use.

 

I had mentioned to my mother a long time ago, that the forgiveness she seeks is of her self, and I still agree with that today.

 

How do you apply forgiveness? 

 

Is it a thought, a feeling, an emotion and it it possible to transfer it to someone?

 

In my experience of how my siblings used forgiveness it is to ‘overlook’ pardon the hurtful actions and remain in a relationship with my parents. 

 

It is seen as a more loving thing to do.

 

More loving than not forgiving.

 

What is not forgiving? 

 

Is it to not overlooking the actions, not pardoning them, but holding them accountable?  Is that wrong?

 

I am not seeing why it is bad to hold someone accountable, to not pardon their behavior, what am I missing here?

 

It didn’t take me long to realize that IF my father was a monster, and IF I didn’t see that, and due to the fact that I had missed this fact, I had brought my girls to him, I was accountable for my behaviors, there was no pardon that would change that fact, none.

 

I was the driver of the car that brought them to him.

I hold myself responsible for my part.

 

As a child who didn’t know, but feared him and was silent, I was not to be pardoned for not telling, being silent was a behavior that was not to be overlooked, for when I was silent he continued to abuse.

 

You can’t pardon my behaviors and even if you did, they will not change the outcome of the past 45 years, nothing, absolutely nothing will change if you forgive me.

 

Nor did it ever even once cross my mind to ask my children or my siblings to forgive me, for I knew full well, what my actions had caused.

 

Martha Beck has a new meaning of forgiveness that I have adopted, “Forgiveness is accepting that the past will not change.”

 

I agree.

 

I have been working on forgiveness, (accepting) my actions and behaviors for the first 46 years of my life, and there is no pardon on earth that will change what happened.  None.

 

No fancy words.

No transferring energy to me.

No emotions can be put upon me to change the outcomes, none.

 

What was done was done.

Many a little girl lost her innocence and there is no pardon for that, none.

 

Pardons will not change it.

Overlooking what happened will not change it.

Refusing to hold them accountable today does not change it, yet all I can do is make sure today that I remain accountable of my actions today.

 

Today I will not forgive him, that is for him to do.

Today I will not forgive her, that is for her to do.

 

Today I will forgive myself by accepting that the past will not change, that I can’t change who I was back there, I can’t change what happened, but I can change who I am today.

 

Who I am today is someone who will not overlook, look around or away from a behavior that hurts, I will hold you accountable for your actions and me for mine, I will speak up instead of be silent about my feelings, and I want you to be honest with me about yours.

 

I don’t want a repeat of my first 46 years.

 

I am grateful I have a second chance at life.

 

Grateful that I have been able to make corrections so history will not repeat itself in my life.

 

I am grateful I didn’t learn to forgive my mother, for I would have allowed the same behavior in myself.

 

It was for both of us that I didn’t forgive her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

United together without abuse.

“One can be a brother only in something.  Where there is no tie that binds men, men are not united but merely lined up.” 

~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

 

What is the something that binds a family together, what binds sisters to sisters, and brothers to brothers, and sisters to brothers and brothers to sisters?

 

What ingredient is needed to weld a family together?

 

Something held us together and something tore us apart, and I want to know what that something is and who was responsible for stealing the something.

 

We can all get together and be a family lined up as I see it, or as others see it, a united family.

 

If I were to join the lineup today, I would just be lining up I would not be reunited.

 

The ‘something’ is missing for me now.

 

Did I give it away or was it taken from me, or was it even there in the first place, perhaps it was just a total illusion all along.

 

Maybe all we ever were was a family line up.

A line up of abused kids.

We were bound by abuse.

 

When I stopped standing there in the abuse, when I left and walked away, I broke the bond that held me in place, I left the abuse, I walked out of the lineup.

 

I was bound there by abuse, by a shared secret, my insides matched their insides, and we were united.

 

United in a lineup of abuse.

 

I want to lineup again, but not in abuse.

 

I want to line up in a real family.

 

And that is the legacy I am trying to build for my children, so that they have a family that is united together without abuse.

 

God Only Accepts Originality.

“What makes you think that human beings are sentient and aware?  There's no evidence for it.  Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable.  For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.  The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.  Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their "beliefs."  The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings.  But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all.  We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists.  Any other view of our species is a self-congratulatory delusion.  ~Michael Crichton, The Lost World

 

I read the above paragraph on the Quote Garden site, and I am also reading a book called, “Under the Banner of Heaven” a story of a violent faith, by Jon Krakauer.

 

I wonder how many people question where the seeds of their religion were started, who began each of the separate strains of religion, who created the rules and decide what was the perfect concoction that would get you into Heaven, what would anger God, what would make him happy, how you must behave in order to have the correct ticket into heaven upon your death.

 

From my viewpoint of being an observer of the regulations each church puts upon its members, being your self isn’t enough, you have to design yourself to fit into their boxes of what is right and what is wrong.

 

Reading account of how Joseph Smith began the Mormon Church is insanity at its best.  Just the way in which he dictated the information alone is crazy.

 

“Joseph would place the magic rock in an upturned hat, bury his face in it with the stack of golden plates sitting nearby, and dictate the lives of scripture that appeared to him out of the blackness.” 

 

This is the how the Book Of Mormon was created and today there are more than eleven million saints that follow this writing.

 

The golden plates have never been found; yet 11 million people are following what some man created with his head buried in a hat.

 

It leads you to wonder how the rest of the religions were founded, by whom on what grounds.

 

I am a skeptic at best that any religion has a sturdier bottom than the Mormons.

 

A violent faith…, it seems that all faiths are violent to the individual spirit and uniqueness of each of us.

 

One God and many paths, perhaps if we each formed our own religion it would be a much kinder planet, since most of the fighting is about who is right and whose church goes to Heaven.

 

Heaven is knowing there isn’t only one right church and one right path, Heaven is knowing God isn’t found in certain religion. 

 

Heaven knowing you don't have to be in a certain religion acting a certain way so that when you die, you will be in heaven.  Heaven is being you.

 

There is a quote that goes something like this.  God only accepts originality.

 

Imagine 11 million people are trying to be like Joseph Smith....

 

 

 

 

Knowing Me From the Inside Out.

"The Four Agreement Companion Book" by Miguel Angel Ruiz, M.D. and Janet Mills.  In it they write:

"All the suffering and drama in your life is the result of what you have learned.  Whatever you learn is alive.  The image that you have of yourself is alive, and it lives in your mind.  That image is not you, but it will use everything it perceives to justify its own existence. It is not you, but it is eating you alive and destroying your happiness."

"The voice of knowledge inside your mind controls the dream of your life.  The Toltec's call it a Parasite; the Bible calls it evil.  It is a living being that exists in your belief system, and lives by eating your faith, your intent, and your happiness.  What is sad is that you believe the knowledge is you; you believe the image is what you are.  The program, or Parasite, is really the one who is living your life, not you.  But this program was not there when you were born."

"When you were born, your mind was completely innocent.  You had no concepts about good or bad, right or wrong, beauty or ugliness; you had no concepts at all.  You had no idea what it means to be a human, to be a man or to be woman, but you saw other people outside of you, and you recognized them as your own kind."

"When you are one, two, or three years old, you cannot see yourself.  The only way to see yourself is to look at your image in a mirror, and other people act as that mirror.  You don't know what you are, but your mother tells you what you are, and your father tells you what you are, and brothers and sisters do the same thing.  The other humans around you have the capacity to project an image onto you, which means they tell you what they believe you are."

"What your mother tells you is not exactly what your father tells you that you are, or what your siblings, or the television, or the church, or the whole society tells you that you are.  Every human in your life projects a completely different image onto you, and none of these images are accurate.  What you believe you are is a distorted image of yourself that came from other people -- from mirrors that always distort images.  Because you cannot see yourself, you believe them as you agree with them.  As soon as you agree, the image is programmed in your memory, and now you believe this is what you are."

"What were the images others projected onto you?  When you say, "I am smart, I am stupid, I'm beautiful, I am ugly," it is really the program who says I AM.  These images are only knowledge or a lot of concepts, but they aren't you." 

"You perceive all the distorted images others create for you, and at a certain point you take all these images and try to make sense of them.  You create another whole image of yourself, and project it to the outside world:  I am good in school; I am bad in sports.  Then you practice that image until you master it.  And because people are projecting different images onto you, you are always asking them about yourself.  You are asking for the projections to support what you already believe, to support the distorted images you have about yourself."

"In the same way other people project their beliefs onto you, you agree, and they become yours.  They teach you to judge the way they judge, to gossip the way they gossip, to create dramas the way they create dramas.  You begin to play with all these concepts, all this knowledge, and that is how you learn to dream."

"The Toltec's call this the dream of the first attention because it is the first time you used your attention to create a whole reality.  And because your attention is hooked from the outside, your whole world is projected to the outside.  You begin to search for the yourself outside of you because you no longer trust who you are.  You search for what you believe you don't have:  justice, beauty, happiness, and love, when all of these were always inside of you."

"Can you see the beginning of all the suffering and drama in your life?  You need a mirror in the world to see yourself, but there isn't a clear mirror to tell you what you are.  So you agree with the image others create for you, but you are not that image.  Of course you modify the image and you change it all the time, but where is the real you?  It gets lost because there isn't a good mirror to reflect what you really are."

            Don Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills

This book will be one of my pivotal books in explaining and affirming how I woke up one day and had no idea who I truly was, but had a great idea of who I wasn’t.

The world is pretty scary when you can’t trust yourself, and instead rely on others to define you, your sense of self changes many times a day depending upon who you are with.

Wayne Dyer’s quote, “Beyond the good opinion of others…” comes to mind, when their opinions can’t shake yours.

I have unlearned who I was to re-learn who I am.

The greatest gift I was ever given was to find out I didn’t know who I was, while it was the most terrified I have ever been, it also was the most exhilarating.

Parts of the old me come floating in from time to time, just to be recognized for what I am not, each bringing back to me a new space or an open spot for a new idea, a new awareness, a new discovery to be made.

Undoing the old beliefs and thoughts or mirror images others and my self thought of me, giving way to new me.

My outsides have changed little, but the redecorating that is going on inside my head and the way I feel about myself is quite stunning.

Knowing me from the inside out. 

I picked me.

One of the side affects to being traumatized when you are little is that you can’t rely on anything, it seems that what we see can change at any time, so it leaves you standing on unsettled ground, nothing is for sure and not what you see.

 

You wait for the change, on guard, but not ready, for you have no way to stop it or change it.  “Ready or not, here I come….”

 

I awoke with the thought that I don’t trust people to remain the same; I am always waiting on a change, it is my sense of people that they swing hot and cold.

 

Like a twisting knife, you never are sure what side they will present to you.

 

The same sick nature was in me, I too never knew what was going to send me into a rage, what seemingly small item would be the last straw, what it took for me to lose control of me.

 

The more I trust me, the more I gain control over me, the more I am able to calm me down, to respond in ways that match reality, the less the trauma affects have me.

 

Not trusting others is only half of the affect, not trusting that you can exit that you have a choice to no longer be with a twisting person, leaves you stuck.

 

So not only are you playing roulette, you can’t duck.

 

When I learned I didn’t have to be with people who are so confused, so out of control, I was free.

 

To be free to move and duck to play or not play opens up a whole new world.

 

I love that changes will still come, but that I don’t have to entertain them.

 

I select my response to all changes.  I decide how I will respond, it isn’t pre-programmed, and when change comes I get to decide what to do, it isn’t forced upon me.

 

Being forced to weather changes.

 

Forced to withstand what ever is assaulted upon you.

 

Leaves you a prisoner in your own life.

 

Where you and the jailer are one.

 

I used to pray and hope and that others would change so I could feel better, yet I never prayed for me to change, not once did I see it was me!

 

I was the one who allowed her self to be forced; it started as a child and became a way of life.

 

A forceful way of life.

 

Forced to be where you don't want to be.

 

Until I was forced to choose them or me.

 

Forced to pick one life.

 

I picked me.